This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

Extra! Extra! Read all about amazing Newsies musical!

Mirvish production is a dynamite theatrical experience with can't-forget-'em songs

Newsies tells the story of a dynamic time in U.S. history, just at the turn of the 20th century, when the newspaper business was the hottest thing in New York City, with iconic names like Joseph Pulitzer calling the shots.
(Deen van Meer)

Newsies is a true story, which makes it all the more impressive, because you’re really watching the beginning of kid power, the youth labour movement and the dawn of a century when those under 21 would come to wield incredible power. (Deen van Meer)

Music by Alan Menken. Lyrics by Jack Feldman. Book by Harvey Fierstein. Directed by Jeff Calhoun. Until Aug. 30 at the Ed Mirvish Theatre, 244 Victoria St. 416-872-1212.

If I were you, I’d get down as soon as possible to the Ed Mirvish Theatre, where Newsies opened on Thursday, before the amazing young men of the cast dance their way right through the stage floor.

Don’t laugh. It actually happened on Broadway, where I saw the show three years ago and the Grade A assortment of talent that’s currently performing it here has all the energy and pizzazz of the original cast.

Article Continued Below

But what makes Newsies such a dynamite theatrical experience - not just for the target youth audience, but for their parents and grandparents as well – is that it’s more than a collection of can’t-forget-’em songs by Alan Menken and Jack Feldman, or a dazzlingly staged production by director Jeff Calhoun and choreographer Christopher Gattelli.

The show’s secret weapon is that it’s got a giant beating heart, just as big as, well, as Harvey Fierstein, who adapted it from the cult 1992 movie of the same name.

It tells the story of a dynamic time in U.S. history, just at the turn of the 20th century, when the newspaper business was the hottest thing in New York City, with iconic names like Joseph Pulitzer calling the shots.

But Newsies isn’t about him, not really, although he figures in the cast. It’s really about the scrappy street kids who went out every morning before dawn to hawk the papers on the streets of New York.

“We need an earthquake or a war,” they sing in the killer opening number, “Carrying the Banner,” because if they didn’t sell all the papers they took in the morning, they had to pay the piper and these were kids who didn’t’ know where there next meal was coming from.

And one day in 1899 Pulitzer raised the price of the papers they bought each day and a revolution started.

It’s a true story, which makes it all the more impressive, because you’re really watching the beginning of kid power, the youth labour movement and the dawn of a century when those under 21 would come to wield incredible power.

It was also a time when women were breaking free of the shackles a male society had wrapped them in and it’s no coincidence that the two leading female roles in Newsies are played by tough independent women: Angela Grovey as Medda Larkin, the big-voiced, open-armed entertainer, and Stephanie Styles as Katherine, a courageous young reporter truly born to the breed.

Styles, in particular, has a winning smile, an embrace of a voice and the courage to spit out lines like military commands. She’s swell.

But it’s really the boys’ show and they are all something to write home about.

Dan DeLuca practically vibrates with working-class energy as the embryonic labour leader Jack Kelly, while Jacob Kemp brings a sweet Talmudic wisdom as his gentle sidekick, Davy. Zachary Sayle is heartbreakingly appealing as the crippled Crutchie, simply by playing for energy and humour instead of pathos.

And kid performers don’t come any better than Vincent Crocilla as the diminutive Les, who redefines the word cheeky for once and for all.

Steve Blanchard is appropriately venal yet powerful as Pulitzer and Kevin Carolan wraps the show’s plot up amiably with a fine take on Teddy Roosevelt.

Yes, the book is great and the actors heartfelt, but it’s the dancing that truly takes Newsies up into the stratosphere. It’s West Side Story meets Seven Brides for Seven Brothers: a combination of athletic energy and coltish charm that is totally sublime.

There are two hit musicals in Toronto now: Newsies and Kinky Boots. And they have three things in common: they’re both written by Harvey Fierstein, they’re both presented by Mirvish Productions and they’re both a spectacular way to spend a couple of hours this summer.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com